


Losses and Winnings

by GreenRevolutionary



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: But Not Much, at expressing feelings, head in clouds all the time, maybe a little bit of unanswered feelings, neither of them can say that though, story happens on Earth, the doctor is not good, the doctor is not very focused, the reader is genderneutral, there is a puppy involved, they really like each other though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenRevolutionary/pseuds/GreenRevolutionary
Summary: This is a short reader-insert where they happen to spend some time together on Earth. There is not much plot, mainly just the reader`s thoughts when they have been travelling with the Doctor for a bit and what their life is like now.Eighth doctor is quite up there in my list of favourite docs and I have always found it quite funny how easily distracted he seems to be. So I wanted to try what it would be like to write a character like that.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor/Reader, Eighth Doctor/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Losses and Winnings

Sometimes you missed being back on Earth. Just sometimes. The moment like right now was one of them, a piece of normal conversation, about the things that happened in everyday lives of the people who lived on Earth. Normal lives, no constant running for their lives, no talk about aliens or the constant science-y babble that seemed to make up most of the Doctor`s talk. You didn`t mind listening to the science talk but from time to time it was nice to listen to someone talking and understand the words they were saying, not just some part of them.

Just as you thought of the Doctor, you noticed him waiting for you outside the café, leaning against a low stone wall, picking on a small potted plant that sat on the wall. You smiled at him and turned back to the person you were talking with. You did enjoy a piece of human communication but that often acted as a reminder why you had left at all. You said your goodbyes and walked out, stopping in front of the Doctor.

“A new friend?” he asked with a small smile upon his lips, looking up at you as his never-resting hands fiddled with the leaf he had picked off the plant.

“Yup,” you nodded cheerily. “They told me about this really cute puppy they were planning to adopt with their girlfriend. They even had a picture, it was such a cute little furball,” you nearly squealed a little, remembering the adorable animal. 

“Hey could we get a puppy for TARDIS?” you looked up to him. “Something that can run really fast in case we get in trouble. Or something that is like a couch pillow and never wants to leave the TARDIS, so it wouldn`t get into trouble at all. That would probably be better.” 

“Maybe you should just get a cat, they sleep a lot, would be a very low-maintenance” the Doctor offered, getting distracted by a pigeon that flew past, carrying a croissant it had possibly nicked from somewhere. You pulled him closer to you on the sidewalk to make him avoid a passing bicycle, your hand tightening around his to get his attention back.

“Don`t you think a cat would get lost in the TARDIS? Dog at least tries to follow people around but cats are more or less little independent shits,” you pulled the Doctor after you when he tried to go the opposite direction from where he had parked his time-traveling machine. One of the main reasons you insisted on holding his hand all the time was because despite his amazing and brilliant mind, Doctor`s sense of direction was not on the same level. And you did not often feel like looking for him and fishing him out of whatever trouble he had gotten into.

“A cat might have fun there though. Nothing would really happen to them, TARDIS doesn`t actually mind animals and takes care of them when she can. Mainly gives them food,” Doctor was going in the other direction again and this time you didn`t really bother pulling him along and just walked on. It seemed like he was following the direction where the pigeon had come from. That was quite a normal lead for him to follow, at least it wasn`t like the time he had run after a swarm of bees. Apparently bees don`t really like people following them. As you had found out the harder way when at one point it was not Doctor anymore who was doing the following.

“Doc are you hungry?” you noticed him eyeing the small bakery that really had a flock of pigeons on its roof, by the look of them plotting the demise of the baker and overtaking the small shop.

“Noooo….” The Doc looked down at you, “Why do you ask? Are you?” you sighed when you saw his eyes dart away again and walked over the road to the small bakery. 

Getting inside you quickly patted down your pockets to get some loose change you must have forgotten in them. You had taken to carrying money around most of the time, since despite promising to give you moon and stars, Doctor really was quite a cheap date who never bothered to carry around any himself. You got a small custard tart from the bakery, basking in the lovely smells in the shop. Holding the warm pasty you went back to the Doc and gave him the food.

“Here. Where to next?” you took a hold of his hand again and walked to a nearby bench where you could plop him down while he ate so he wouldn`t get lost by wandering off. “I`m thinking of Moon.”  
“Moon is quite boring, really,” he was chomping down the pasty, swallowing quickly before continuing talking. “Nothing much is happening up there, one Martian base max.”  
“But I`ve never been,” you argued but not with much energy. Usually you made a point of suggesting somewhere he wouldn´t really go, just so he could suggest something that would really blow your mind, in order to make you realize how wild the universe could actually get.

“Maybe I want to make sure just how boring it is myself,” you leaned over to him and took a bite of his food, it had smelled so good you really wanted to know what it wasted like. As you had assumed, it was nearly perfect, and you made a small mental note of the bakery for the future. The Doctor hummed in agreement, deep in thought and you went in for another bite.

You shrugged, knowing he would be lost to the world for a few minutes while he rode the train of thought he had happened to stumble on at the moment. So you swung your legs back and forth and looked around in the park. There was a couple who was playing with a small puppy and you found yourself yearning for something like they had. Something simple. And a dog. You really wanted a dog.

You were chewing on your lower lip as you thought. Dog you could probably get, Doctor didn`t seem against it anyways. And it wouldn`t be like he would notice them that much anyways. You were quite afraid sometimes, that if you weren`t there to tie him to the ground, he would walk around with his head so high up in the clouds he would float away one day. You didn`t mind doing the grounding, since it wasn`t a job for you, it was something that just came naturally as you went through life and took him along with you. And you had never thought what would happen if you weren`t there, because you just hadn`t thought of him without you.

You leaned against the back of the bench and dipped your head back to look at the sky. There was a cloud up there, just floating by that was shaped like a llama. You chuckled a bit to yourself as the llama started to fall into pieces in the sudden gust of wind. You felt the bench creak slightly and then Doctor was close beside you.

“What are we looking at?” he asked, hands already folding up the paper bag the tart had come in. 

“A llama,” you groaned when you felt your neck tensing up already. You looked at the side to stretch a bit and you ended up looking at him. He had told you he was thinking of cutting his hair sometime but so far he had forgotten to do so and you were glad for it. Firstly because you couldn`t even imagine how horrible that would end up looking if he did. And secondly because you thought he looked sort of romantic and soft with longer hair. Paired with the clothes it gave him a look that was out of place everywhere except a very exact point in the whole history of England.

“Ah, I can see that,” he smiled a bit, glancing towards you when he had no reply. “What?” he frowned a little in thought as he tried to find a reason why you were looking. You just shook you head a bit and looked on. “Is there something on my face?” he brushed over his lips with the back of his hand, pulling all your attention there.

“Nah,” you jumped up, looking away to hide the slightest of blushes that crept up onto your cheeks. “Let`s go now, I`m a bored.”

“It`s your own time you know,” he said when you grabbed his hand and dragged him up from the bench. “You wouldn`t be bored if you lived here all the time.”

“I absolutely would be,” and again you had to start the dance of pulling him after you to direct him towards the TARDIS. However he found it when you weren`t around was a mystery to you, must be a mix of good luck and just running around a lot. “You don`t know what my life was like before I met you.”

“Normal, I assume,” you had finally reached the TARDIS and when you went to push the door open the machine made a welcoming noise, letting you know she had been waiting for the two of you to get back so she could get back to seeing new worlds. 

You made an agreeing noise, not caring about explaining to him what human lives were like. It wasn`t like he would have really understood anyways. No matter how human he looked or sometimes acted, there was always a voice in your head reminding you that he was not. You didn`t really mind him not being a human, but you just couldn`t forget it either. And you knew that despite his forgetfulness, he couldn`t either.

“Do you regret coming with me?” he suddenly asked, stopping fiddling with the TARDIS console, looking up at you. “That you are living a whole other life without your family. You can`t have that back you know.”

“I know, and I don`t mind,” you shrugged. “I got a new family instead, didn`t I?” you were holding your breath, hoping he wouldn`t shoot the sentiment down. He didn`t, of course. Too kind and sentimental for that. But still you felt heavy inside, you knew what he had meant by what he said. He lived far longer than a usual human, so you could never be a family in the usual sense. The people you had left behind and missed occasionally, they lived on a different pace. You didn`t even bother going back on Earth that often so one day you would be just declared missing when you never went back at all. Another mystery, lost to the time.

There was really so much to lose when you were travelling with the Doctor. But the winnings, boy, they more than made up for the losses.


End file.
